Workplace reviews and discussion: 華紳男仕禮服有限公司

Huashen Gentlemen’s Formalwear Co., Ltd. & iSuit Creative Apparel Co., Ltd. & Desheng Jewelry Co., Ltd.

The owners of all three companies are the same person, and their management systems are more or less the same.

1. The company has improved. When I first joined the company, employees only had fixed Wednesdays off, and labor and health insurance were falsely reported at only the minimum level. Later, employees were allowed to take leave based on the number of national holidays, and labor and health insurance were reported at levels closer to the actual salary paid. It feels like the company is slowly—very slowly—improving, moving forward at about the speed of a snail. (Put nicely, it is improving, but these are merely the most basic benefits provided by other companies to their employees, and it took until 2022 for the company to provide them.)

2. During the pandemic, to ensure that everyone could get by on a salary, the company agreed with employees that pandemic leave would be calculated based on the daily wage, and if that amount was lower than the minimum wage, the company would pay the minimum wage directly. (I think this was probably the best decision the company ever made for its employees.)

3. The pay deduction system for lateness is fairly humane. Deductions are calculated based on your own salary and the number of minutes you are late, so there is not much pressure about being late. Even if you oversleep by one or two hours, only about NT$100–200 is deducted.

Huashen Gentlemen’s Formalwear Co., Ltd. & iSuit Creative Apparel Co., Ltd. & Desheng Jewelry Co., Ltd.

The owners of all three companies are the same person, and their management systems are more or less the same.

1. Work environment:

Store staff mainly work on the first and second floors, while administrative staff and the tailors who make the suits work in the basement (some administrative staff have been moved to the branch). The first and second floors are simple and clean, with an overall gray color scheme that gives them a minimalist, fashionable, modern feel. The basement is packed with various types of inventory and suits prepared for customers, while tailors sew and iron clothes there, making it very oppressive and stuffy. The boss’s tea table is often covered with tea and water, so there are also many mosquitoes and other insects downstairs. Holiday KTV is nearby, and when working in the basement, you can often hear singing coming from it.

2. Job responsibilities:

The actual duties include many more miscellaneous tasks than were promised during the interview. Regardless of your position, you are expected to help carry and move things, clean the environment, wash air conditioners, and clean carpets. You cannot refuse anything the general manager or supervisors need your help with. The general manager considers these tasks to be included in your salary.

Additional work often comes very suddenly. After your schedule is already full, you may suddenly be told that something is needed the next day or that a customer will be arriving shortly, catching you completely off guard. If you cannot finish the work by the deadline, you have to take it home to complete.

New employees in every department must know how to handle garment handovers. When the store is short-staffed, administrative employees are expected to put aside their current work and help serve customers. Everything must take priority over the customer.

3. Coworkers:

The bridal industry is a traditional industry. At the other branches, the average age is probably around 35, while most iSuit employees are younger, with an average age of around 26.

Store staff and alteration tailors are frequently understaffed. It is common for only two store employees to work in a day, while the appointment schedule is packed. When there are not enough store employees, having administrative staff go upstairs to help has become routine.

4. Company benefits:

The job listing advertises benefits such as gifts or cash for the three major holidays, year-end bonuses, and employee trips.

In reality, during my time at the company, I only received a Mid-Autumn Festival fruit gift box once. The year-end bonus was usually no more than half a month’s salary. Before the pandemic, there were trips abroad; during the pandemic, there was a trip to Yilan that followed an itinerary more suited to senior citizens. The prizes in the year-end party raffle were also not very impressive, and individual cash prizes apparently never exceeded five digits. (One year, one day of the employee trip fell on a workday. Those who went on the trip were exempt from work, while those who did not go had vacation days deducted, effectively forcing employees to participate.)

You must have completed one full year before becoming eligible for employee trips and the three-holiday benefits. Note that it must be one full calendar year; otherwise, you have to pay for the employee trip yourself, and if you do not go, vacation days will still be deducted.

5. Leave policy:

As mentioned under the advantages, it was not until 2022 that the company began providing annual leave normally in accordance with the Labor Standards Act and granting regular days off according to national holidays.

(Before 2022, annual leave was completely unrelated to the Labor Standards Act; after working for one year, employees received only three days of annual leave.)

The company stipulates that annual leave may only be taken during the slow wedding-season months of February, July, and August; leave is prohibited in other months. If you take more than two consecutive days off in the same month, including your regular days off that month, you must submit an application form. Human Resources may even reject your application because they think you have too few working days that month.

6. Hierarchy:

The company likes to hand out titles indiscriminately—people have titles without the ability to match them, especially long-time employees.

This company places great importance on hierarchy. You are expected to greet people when you see them. When I was still new, a branch manager came to a meeting, and I was criticized simply because I did not greet him. (For fuck’s sake, what does the branch manager have to do with me? The point is, I was not even subordinate to his department. I have no idea what he was acting so cocky about.)

If you discuss something with a store manager with even a slightly assertive tone, the manager will use their position to pressure you, saying things like, “Watch your position. I’m the manager of this store.” It is incredibly ridiculous.

7. Other:

This company really likes to package itself and use sales talk with customers. Its Google ratings are obtained by giving customers small gifts in exchange for reviews. The reason there are so many reviews is that employees push customers to leave reviews, and once a certain number is reached, employees can receive a bonus.

The boss really likes to make grand promises. New ideas are often proposed, but ultimately nothing comes of them. Otherwise, halfway through implementation, the general manager overturns the boss’s own idea and asks us why we are doing it. Or the boss forgets having proposed the idea in the first place, and also easily forgets things they promised.